


Love's Not Time's Fool Part I Ch.1

by kinfic2



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 01:39:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinfic2/pseuds/kinfic2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"These are the times that try men's souls." T. Paine<br/>One year post-513</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love's Not Time's Fool Part I Ch.1

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Shakespeare's Sonnet #116  
> Queer as Folk is the property of its owners. No copyright infringement intended.

 

 

 

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/kinfic2/21159744/41193/41193_original.png)

  
       JUSTIN'S POV:  
  
_“No, I can’t forget this evening or your face as I was leaving.”_ _©H.Nilsson_  
  
      After a whole fucking year, I can’t think about the day I left. Remembering is too painful, like pulling off a bandage from a wound not fully healed and ripping it open. Focusing only on the bad times— _You expect him to sacrifice his career for a_ _piece of blond_ _boy ass_? _You don’t hear what you want so you leave_. _Listen, you little shit. I don’t want you here—_ doesn’t work. When a wisp of a memory does slip through, it’s filtered through a lens of regret and anger. I didn’t want to go. But I did.  
  
_“Scars of pleasure, scars of pain, atmospheric changes make them sensitive again.”_ _©Peart,Lee,Lifeson_  
  
      Ultimately, the choice was mine, a minute detail that did nothing to stem the waterworks on the way to the airport. As my old life disappeared amid a blur of concrete and asphalt, I hurtled toward a new one, tears flowing down my cheeks faster than I could brush them away. And despite constant swallowing, the huge lump in my throat wouldn't budge.  
  
      Like an unsolvable jigsaw puzzle, I couldn’t make sense of the jumbled emotions churning inside me. As nervous as I was, the freedom of being on my own and the professional opportunities New York had to offer made me giddy with expectation, filling me with a euphoria so strong that I’d shake from the effects. When long-ignored daydreams bombarded me with images of a utopian future, my skin puckered with goose bumps. An intoxicating mental cocktail so potent, I was high and drunk at the same time. But it was no match for the devastating sadness that a part of me was over, the worrisome fear that my upheaval would be for nothing, and the paralyzing terror that _this_ would be the greatest mistake of my life. With so much at stake, what I wouldn’t have given for a crystal ball.  
  
      In the taxi, hammers of pain jabbed my skull. Since the driver seemed intent on hitting every bump and pothole with unerring accuracy, the jagged edges of torn vinyl stabbed my scalp like ice picks. Sick to my stomach, I scrunched my eyes and leaned against the worn cushions. With the pounding of my heart against my ribcage, I felt lightheaded and dizzy. My mouth tasted like iron, but I wouldn't let the panic attack suck me in.  I knew the drill and concentrated on leveling out my breaths with techniques learned after the bashing. I’m not ashamed to admit that thinking about the way Brian calmed me with my nightmares also helped get me on track.  
  
      When I no longer had to gasp for air, I didn’t sound wheezy, and my hands lost their awful clamminess. I grabbed a bottle of water from my backpack, popped a few Advil for the headache and waited for the magic.  
  
      Crisis averted, I smirked in between lingering sniffles. Like the Mountie always getting his man, Brian got his way. I was going to New York, leaving everything and anyone I ever cared about in Pittsburgh.                           

                                                 _“Well, I’ve been afraid of changing ‘cause I’ve built my life around you.”_ _©S.Nicks_  
  
                                                                                                   ****  
  
     “YOU DON'T KNOW THAT. WHETHER WE SEE EACH OTHER NEXT WEEK, NEXT MONTH, NEVER AGAIN. IT'S ONLY TIME.”  
  
      We never would have had any chance at all if I had made a scene, arguing and shouting. Brian doesn’t do feelings very well. As a result, emotional displays don’t work with him; they make him dig his heels in harder. No amount of fighting or persuading can change his mind once he gets an idea in his head. Regardless how fucked, it attaches itself to his brain like a leech. And this was one fucker of a leech.  
  
      According to Mr. Kinney’s warped view of life, there’s no room at the inn of love for sacrifice. I guess he never got the memo that it’s not about sacrifice. It’s about compromise. And what the fuck was _whether we see each other next week, next month, never again_? Bullshit! _It’s only time?_ Double bullshit! Did he believe that? Did he honestly think we were over?  
  
_“I was born to love you and I will never be free. You’ll always be a part of me.”_ _©B.Bacharach_  
  
      He is the most frustrating man on the planet. I didn’t know how to fight him or what weapons to use. I wanted to win the war, not just the battle. If I hadn’t been afraid of making the situation worse, I would have begged him to let me stay or punched him in the face. Both were no-win options, so I did neither. I left. Some, particularly a certain Michael Novotny, jumped to conclusions, gleefully trumpeting that walking out was my modus operandi—when the going got tough, the tough literally got going. They were wrong.  
  
      Yes, I left. But my decision had as much to do with Brian as it did with me. If I stayed and didn’t become everyone’s anticipated darling of the art world, he’d blame himself for holding me back, for making me “sacrifice” my career. There's that damn word again. Did I also mention that even though he doesn’t do feelings very well, he’s cornered the market on guilt? Just my luck to fall in love with a man whose outward abundance of confidence and self-worth hides a multitude of lonely and insecure sins.  
  
      I wanted us to be partners, equal partners. If he continued to take care of me, if I continued to _allow_ him to take care of me, it never would happen. Maybe that’s what he meant about becoming the best homosexual I could be. But after repeating his words on a continuous loop, I think it was about becoming the best man I could be. I had to prove to him and to myself that I could survive on my own, that I was more than one half of an us, that I was a whole of me. No matter how impossible, I had to make a life without him—in order to have one with him.  
  
      In the beginning, the calls were frequent and the visits often, perversely making the depression harder to shake off. Every time he left, it was harder to let him go. As days faded into weeks and weeks into months, he pulled away, deliberately keeping his distance. Another sanity-sucking barnacle had found a home in his head. And people say _I’m_ predictable? Each conversation added another brick to an invisible but well-defined wall, and it scared the hell out of me.

                                                     _“Every time you go away, you take a piece of me with you.”_ _©D.Hall_

      A relationship with a river of distance running through it requires Olympian strength swimmers. If you’re not strong, you drown—absence doesn’t necessarily make the heart grow fonder. Were we growing apart because we weren’t together? I started to doubt my judgment to leave. Had being with Brian for so long awakened a stupid gene lying dormant all these years?  
  
      How many times I wanted to pack up and go home, gladly conceding defeat if it would have secured his place in my life or mine in his. But I’m glad I didn’t. Difficult as it was, I had to stay. It was the only way to find out if I fit this new life and if it fit me.  
  
      As time stealthily worked behind the scenes, I worked on marking the calendar with time. Each red X accelerated my slide into an abyss of nothingness, into a mindless existence without Brian. And as I slid, the strangest thing happened. I made a life for myself. It took a while and it wasn’t easy, but I did. I have friends, a couple I consider good friends. I haven’t been celibate either. I go to clubs, meet guys and occasionally fuck said guys. Over all, things are going well. I guess. But trying to make myself believe I’m happy gets tiring, you know?  
  
_“My world is empty without you, babe. And as I go my way alone, I find it hard for me to carry on.”_  
_©Holland,Dozier,Holland_  
  
     Through connections and some begging, I had pieces included in a few shows and received favorable reviews. But at every opening, something was missing. A professor once said life isn’t your own. It doesn’t belong to only you, and it’s not a separate entity from your environment. You struggle to fit square pegs into round holes with the things you do every day and when you can’t, the empty spaces are filled by others...if you’re lucky. I didn’t feel lucky this year.  
  
      Obviously, Pittsburgh isn’t on the other side of the world, but I can’t expect people to drop everything and travel to New York whenever I have a painting in a show. I did send the notices and paper clippings to my mother like a dutiful son, hoping she’d show or mention them to him. I wanted to ask but kept my mouth shut, preferring the torment of not knowing to a deluge of well-meaning questions and parental concerns. I didn’t have answers, for her or myself.  
  
      And now, after all the fucking heartache, after all the wasted time, I’m the featured artist in a very small gallery show. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited. I am. I’m just not sure it was worth the sleepless nights and countless tears waiting for it to happen.

                                                                                                      

                                      _“Who can give them back their lives and all those wasted years? All those precious wasted years.”_ _©Peart,Lee Lifeson_  
  
      To top it off, I have something else to worry about. Do I let him know and if I do, how? Or does he already know and if he does, what do I do?

**Continue here:** <http://archiveofourown.org/works/822156>


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